Hope & Opportunity

I helped to organize a show in the final semester at CSULB called “The Monster Show”.

These pieces were inspired by the State of the Union Address given by George W. Bush in 2007. The theme of that speech was “Hope and Opportunity”.

I started to execute these on illustration board, hoping to paint washes over a detailed pencil drawing. In the end, however, I decided to integrate a sculptural element with a frame over stretched canvas.

Fall 2006 semester was one of the best and most challenging. I spent a lot of time at school, wanting to live there, to escape home.

As the semester was coming to a close in November, I learned that students had the ability to apply for gallery space if there were open spots in the calendar. I had seen a show earlier in the year that was themed “Heaven and Hell” that got me thinking about the possibilities.
Jennie had mentioned that she had been wanting to organize a group show. We talked about it briefly, but I didn’t know how to get it going. As always, she had no hesitation. She came up with a theme: Monster Show. It happened quickly after that.

December 19th 2006, Owen Schumacker started the Yahoo Group “beachmonster” and nicknamed the Monster Show, “Project Cobra” to keep it secret.